SPIRIT and SPACE It often seems that spiritual concerns are something foreign and far-re.moved from the pressures of r:veryday life-and they usually have been in our culture. Yet the whole purpose ofall · our frenzied activity is to somehow make us happier..And the most important thing about getting happier is feelings-about ourselves, towards others, about our world. Funniest thing, once we remember why we 're doing things- good feelings and feeling good- we suddenly realize that reverence and respect and love in how we do things are _'more importnat than frenzy , and quantity. More and more that is happeiiing in how people • are making th·e places where they live. Mud, Space, and Spirit, Gray, Macrae & McCall, 1976, $7.95 from: · • Capra Press 631 State Street Santa Barbara, CA 93101 This book is a record of owner-building in New Mexico-of people making adobes and adobe homes with their own hands '.1-nd hearts. The results speak for themselves, through good photographs and essays. Contains good bibliography on adobe • building. The Return of the Gods, Ulli Beier,. 1975, $14.95 from: Cambridge University Press 32 E. 57th Street New York, NY 10022 A small book for the price, but abdut the work of Susanne Wenger, which deserves to be known. Wenger, a European artist, became involved in repair of shrines of the Yoruba religion in Nigeria, an.d the building of new shrines as·she became more involved in the religion. The shrines she l)as built are powerful and are sacred-a rare creation in today's culture. Her respect, as an outsider, for the native religion has helped restore a vestige of its power before the impact of unholy Western culture and shows that new and powerful sacred places can emerge today. • July 1976 RAIN Page 3 Hand-Hewn, William Leitch, 1976, $4.95 from: Chronicle Books 870 Market Street San Francisco, CA 94102 . A~other book on log cabins-but cabins built with Norwegian chmkless construction, built to be beautiful, lasting and loved. • Good detailing, construction techniques, references to specific books and pamphlets useful in various phases. Handmade Houses, Art Boericke, Barry Shapiro, $5.95 from: The A&W Visual Library 95 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 Available in paperback now. Gives beautiful full color coverage of a number of highly individualistic and spirited rural,homes on the North California coast. The works of architects An\onio Gaudi and Louis Kahn are important in this area-but more on that in a later issue. Environmental Design Primer, Tom Bender, 1973, $5 from: Tom Bender 2270 N.W. Irving Portland, OR 97210 Almost did it again- we not only forget to mention our closest friends, but ourselves as well. We just discovered we've never reviewed the Primer. Schocken Books has just come out with an edition of it-they call it a book of meditations on ecological consciousness-which in some ways describes it better than l could. It has a lot to do with moving our heads into the right space before making our places, and a lot to do with the sacredness of all we do. Doing it, five years ago, pulled many things together for me, a!ld I think it 'probably contains a lot of useful things. We still have a hundred or so copies left from our previous printing which we're sti]l selling direct for $5-save $1 from retail price. (TB) •
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